


The Mask of Ion

by fawatson



Category: The Mask of Apollo - Mary Renault
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:40:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21925327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fawatson/pseuds/fawatson
Summary: Nikeratos and Thettalos on tour.
Comments: 9
Kudos: 17
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	The Mask of Ion

**Author's Note:**

  * For [redsnake05](https://archiveofourown.org/users/redsnake05/gifts).



> **Request:** I love both the characters I requested, and it's absolutely fine to focus on just one. I love stories about the intersection between the divine and the mundane, and the way the unknowable gods can interact with mortals. I love the way Niko experiences the world. I'd love to know about his place in the theatre more - other roles he played that shaped him, or important places and theatres at which he played, for example. I love the importance placed on masks, and I loved all the times Niko contemplated the mask - I really love that this locates the mask of Apollo specifically at liminal places, which are a time for Dionysis. I'm also interested in all the other relationships he has, from the love between him and Thettalos, to his friendship with Menekrates, to the feelings of Hagnon as he painted the mask the first time. A tale of a performance or tour or drunken revel or oracle or party with prostitutes and poets would all be awesome.
> 
>  **Disclaimer:** I do not own these characters and make no profit by them.

It was a difficult tour that year, although in the end it proved very fruitful for us. Love each other though we might, Thettalos and I did not always pull well in tandem. We were both too used to being first, to find it always easy to be second. However, it had been a few years since we toured together and living in just the ‘off’ times had simply not been enough. So, we decided to do the Attic tour. Mikon came with us as third. He had served his dues as an extra, and managing machinery, and as one of the chorus. He had earned his chance. He still had much to learn; but we both liked and trusted him, which counts for a lot given the close quarters one in apt to live in when on the road. And we recruited a decent threesome to provide the chorus. 

We chose to perform _Ion_. It is not Euripides at his best. We had other plays in our repertoire we could have performed but we argued back and forth about which interpretation of Orestes – Aischylos, Sophocles and Euripides have all attempted it – to use; and in the end decided to eschew it completely as we simply could not agree. _Ion_ had novelty value at least. No one performs it nowadays, which meant to our audiences it would be fresh and appealing; and neither of us had done it before. _Ion_ has the roles of middle-aged Creusa and young Ion fairly evenly balanced, which made it appealing to Thettalos and me, given we both were used by then to being first. He could play the ingenue like no one else; I was always at my best in women's roles. We had thought it through, and chose it for good sensible reasons, making our decision while we still sat in the comfort of Athens with all the optimism that dry lodgings, good food and plentiful wine provides. When I look back I know it for a god-inspired decision, though I know not exactly _which_ god. I have my suspicions though, given the subject matter. 

One cannot tour with just the one play, of course, and in the end we chose _the Myrmidons_ to rehearse as well. Those towns which wanted something more popular, and thus familiar, would choose the Aischylos. The Trojan War was always a popular subject, and the Patroclos’ death, and Achilles’ hubris made a classic tragedy. We would go as far north as Thebes and _the Myrmidons_ is always well-received there. Neither play demanded much in the way of mechanics. (There is a point in _Ion_ where Athene is meant to appear above, and in a proper theatre she would be flown in, but when playing in one of these little backwater towns the effect can be achieved simply having her stand on a box.) It all seemed quite reasonable when we planned it. However, the two plays did not complement one another. It should have warned us; but, again I say, I believe the gods had a hand in our choices so we were blind to any pitfalls. 

We picked up costumes and other props quite cheaply from Anaxis who said he was too old to tour again, and much happier running an inn for actors than being one himself, and what did he want with these old things cluttering up the shed in his garden. And so we made a start, heading first west from Athens toward Corinth, playing all manner of little towns along the way which helped us each to learn our own parts, and also everyone else's, so we could feel the play as a whole. By the time we reached the outskirts of Corinth we had polished performances for both plays, and Mikon’s confidence had grown. It felt good to be back on tour; I was reminded of my youth under my father’s tutelage. It was doubly nice to lie in Thettalos' arms at night after a good performance and feel ourselves in sympathy with one another over our calling. Truly one can know oneself beloved when both divine and earthly love combine. We were the first touring company to reach Corinth that season and so were welcomed and feted, more for the Aischylos but even the Euripides was well received. 

However, from Corinth we turned back into Attica and then made our way north in Boetia, and our troubles began. The weather turned nasty, with a biting wind and intermittent rain that mired the carts. Two donkeys went lame in a hick town and we struggled to convince a local farmer to sell us replacements. And, worst of all, one by one we all came down with streaming colds. It seemed Melpomene had turned against us. We struggled into Thebes just after my old friend Menekrates had left with his troupe. They had performed splendidly, we were told; and, of course, their pièce de résistance had been _The Myrmidons_. We had no choice but to offer the Thebans _Ion_. 

At least Thebes had a decent theatre, and we had a day to familiarise ourselves with its equipment and rehearse. There was a very nice skênê, which meant there was no need to use a box for Athene at the end. If we wanted she could fly in; but after considerable discussion, we opted to have her suddenly appear on the episkenion. It made Mikon’s change from the Priestess to Athene simpler as he would not need to get himself into harness, and he felt nervous enough at the thought of playing Thebes. (All know Thebans are a discerning audience.) We dreaded the afternoon of the performance. It is never easy to go on after a popular play, and especially difficult when you know your own play is second-rate. By then, we were all heartily sick of _Ion_ , and deeply regretting the decision to perform it, and doubting ourselves. 

We were wrong to doubt, though. Old Hagnon had painted the masks for us, and done a fine job of them. I know many consider his gods and goddesses too idealised. No matter that I have felt the touch of the god through his mask of Apollo, and know it to be divine truth; I will allow that his Hermes and Athene were not his best work. 

But his Creusa was magnificent. Sitting before her, one was able to fully engage with the role; second rate play _Ion_ might be, but I believe I truly channelled the god when I played Creusa that day at Thebes. The trick with her was to give her pathos. She mourned and had to hide her mourning; it would have been easy to play her bitter and twisted, but that way one lost the audience’s interest. It was the actor’s job to help them feel sympathy for her plight. Creusa had put away her one child to save herself and her family from shame, then repented at his exposure, but lived her whole adult life believing she returned too late and he was dead, so that she was damned to live a barren life with a man she clearly despised. That was the failing of Euripides’ play, which rendered it less than great: his Xuthus was a mere caricature. One had no real sympathy for him, and the lines he was given demanded no great acting. (Which is probably just as well as Mikon was no great actor at that early stage of his career.) As I always do at the start of a performance, I sat before Creusa and looked long and hard at her; it always helps me to get into the role. But that time in Thebes I could swear she spoke. 

Thettalos said just the same of the mask of Ion. He had a hard transition to make, from the youthful Ion, the epitome of innocence and naïveté, to the old slave, loyal to his mistress but scheming and vengeful, and then back again to youth. Only an actor of Thettalos’ calibre could possibly have made the transition. I had the larger role in the sense that Creusa was on stage more. But the demands of two such disparate characters provided the greater challenge for an actor. I had taught Thettalos that trick of spending time with the mask before each performance. He swore later that as he went to put on the mask the second time it spoke to him, directed him to dust it with ash, which instantly made Ion look older, and helped his transition from unthinking piety to questioning faith. The mask was superb and Thettalos was stunning. I have never heard such thunderous applause before or since. Ion’s faith in his god Apollo proved well-founded. This flawed play proved to be a masterpiece; it led to us being commissioned for the Lenaia which we won the next year.


End file.
